Judges: For a Better Bench

When Judge Charles Donworth ran for
re-election to the Washington State Supreme Court in 1962, he offered
the voters a solid record of 14 years as an associate justice. His
opponent, an unknown Seattle lawyer, did not even campaign actively. He
offered voters only his namewhich happened, by coincidence, to be
Robert Kennedy. Though Donworth won, the coincidence ran up a formidable vote for his rival.
The campaign has gone into the record books as one more reminder that
the politics of elections may well be unsuited to the selection of
judges....